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Why Your Social Media Marketing Strategy Must Be More Visual?

Several years ago, social media became the new frontier of marketing. However, while it has been around for some time, the rules are frequently changing. In previous years, social media marketers focused on using clever headlines. Those days are over, since images are now much more important.

Social Media Examiner states that the focus has shifted towards visual content. They report that 74% of social media marketers use visuals, which is higher than the number of that use blogs and video.

Why Visual Content is the Crux of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is an ever-evolving discipline. Marketers must keep up with current trends to stay relevant. Here are some reasons visual content is crucial to your social media campaigns.

Overcoming User Blindness to Clickbait Posts

Companies like Buzzfeed and Gawker have ruined the Internet with their obnoxious clickbait headlines. Social media marketers have tried to copy their style with equally bizarre copy.

Brands must rely on compelling visuals instead. According to research from Vero, they stand out much more and have a much more profound effect on click through rates. Changing an image can easily boost the CTR by 42%, which is far more significant than the effect of headlines and descriptions.

Incorporating New Visual Networks into Your Social Media Strategy

In the early days of social media, people promoted their content on Facebook. As you can see from the old ads referenced here, there wasn’t a strong emphasis on visual content. Why? Facebook was a social networking site for people to keep in touch with their friends. They didn’t care nearly as much about visual media.

New social media networks have changed things up. YouTube was more visual, but not nearly to the extent of Instagram or Pinterest. According to Tai Lopez, these social image sharing networks have proven to be highly effective.

“I actually think that Instagram stories and Snapchat are more powerful than anything, other than YouTube — and in some areas they are even more powerful. These platforms allow you to essentially create your own TV shows.”

Marketers must produce highly aesthetic visual content to stand out on these networks. Content from these networks is frequently shared on Facebook and other social networks as well, which rewards marketers that produce compelling visual content.

Create Longer Lasting Impressions for Your Audience

Very few leads make a purchase the first time they interact with your brand. It takes months to build a strong brand image. In order to do this, you need to create lasting memories in their minds.

“Overall, the current results have shown that pictures and words differentially affect how memorial decisions are made in patients with aMCI. Pictures have a clear memorial advantage over words, but the debate as to why is far from settled,” Brandon Ally, PhD, an assistant professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine stated in a press release.

Since pictures form more lasting impressions, they will help your audience remember your message much more easily on social media. This is one of the reasons infographics and other visual tools are used to communicate messages these days.

Incorporate Visual Content into Your Social Media Campaigns

Social media is an excellent medium for communicating messages. However, you may have noticed that your social media efforts have been less effective over the last couple of years. This isn’t a reflection on the validity of social media marketing in general, but rather the way your social media strategy is executed.

Today, visual media is more important than ever. Your campaigns will be far more successful if you incorporate high quality images in your content.

About Annie Qureshi

Annie is a serial blogger and entrepreneur. She has been contributing for several years to well-known platforms like Datafloq, Dzone & B2C. Follow her on posts on twitter @annierqureshi

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